


Where's Dave?

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Brotherly Love, Flashbacks, Gen, Good Brother Diego Hargreeves, Heart-to-Heart, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Torture, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Near Death Experiences, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Travel, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 15:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17983631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: They were seated in the grand dining room, Klaus' legs crossed up on the table and Diego twisting a knife in his fingers and Five was flicking through papers for anything interesting when Luther asked Klaus a question. Instead of answering, Klaus started and stared straight forward, eyes glazed and unseeing. They called his name and he stared around the room and asked in the most petulant, childlike voice, "Where's Dave?"(AKA Klaus has a flashback during family time and his siblings finally learn about all the horrific shit he's gone through, a heart to heart ensues and Diego proves how good a brother he really is. It's not a great revelation to have.)





	Where's Dave?

**Author's Note:**

> Just finished the series tonight with my mumma and we are huge fans of the show. Please tell me if there are any tags that need to be added and let me know if you liked it. I love Klaus and Diego just being loving siblings and there is no way I was going to leave Vanya out of this. I hope I wasn't too insensitive with the PTSD/Flashbacks, I tried to skim over them so I didn't butcher anything. I hope you enjoy x

It had really taken them much too long to even suspect that anything was wrong, past his usual crap, but when they finally caught sight of something Klaus had been hiding from them for so long it actually hurt something inside of them. They had always just assumed 'war' was one of his metaphors for recovery or addiction or something just as horrible.   
  
They were seated in the grand dining room, Klaus' legs crossed up on the table and Diego twisting a knife in his fingers and Five was flicking through papers for anything interesting when Luther asked Klaus a question. Instead of answering, Klaus started and stared straight forward, eyes glazed and unseeing. They called his name and he stared around the room and asked in the most petulant, childlike voice, "Where's Dave?"  
  
Diego had shot up, ushered everyone out of the room except for Five who stood in the corner to overserve and crouched down at Klaus' feet. "Klaus," Diego said gently. "What's wrong?"  
  
"Dave was right here, but then they started shooting at us and now they've taken him away." Klaus looked frantically around the room as if looking for someone. "I don’t know where they took him but I needed to leave because they wouldn't let me in."  
  
Five took a single, cautious step forward. "Klaus," he began, "Where are you right now?"  
  
Klaus looked at him like he was crazy and shook his head. "The front lines. No, hang on, we're back at base. That’s where I normally am with Dave... where's Dave?"   
  
"Uh," Diego got comfortable on the floor and held onto the chair for support. There was real fear in his brother’s eyes and tears threatened to spill out over the edges. "Klaus, have you taken anything?"  
  
Growling, Klaus shoved Diego away. "Fuck off asshole. You can't get any drink out here let alone drugs, you know that."  
  
"Ok, alright, sorry," Diego ran a flustered hand down his face and shot Five a worried glance. Five was looking at Klaus like he had just been given a new equation that he had to decipher. "Listen, Klaus, I don't really know what's happening so can you just tell me what you think is going on?"  
  
Klaus' brow furrowed and he frowned down at Diego. "We're fighting in the war. I was with Dave and then he got shot and they've taken him away but I can't stay because I'm going to get shot too." He pushed himself further back into the seat he was on. "I want to see Dave."  
  
"Listen, Klaus, I know you're confused and something is obviously wrong, but you're not in the war. You've never been in any war." Diego knew to keep his voice down because his other siblings were probably outside the door listening in. Five was looking suspiciously worried in the corner and there was no doubt that Ben was by Klaus's side.   
  
There was a sudden fire in his brother's eyes as he ripped his shirt open to expose the left side of his body. Diego could see that where he had expected to see clear skin marred by nothing but bruises and his ribcage that stuck out from his too-skinny frame, he saw the round scars that he knew could only be bullet wounds. He was about to pass it off as old scars from when Klaus was still out on the hunt for drugs but then Klaus shoved his hand down his shirt and pulled out a set of dog tags. Both had a date, one read 'Klaus' and the other said 'Dave', both with a serial number and rank. The date read 1968. "We fought in the A Shau Valley during the Vietnam War," Klaus snarled. "And don't you dare try and tell me otherwise."  
  
Diego was spared from replying when Klaus suddenly shouted and clasped his hands over his ears, kicking his feet and rearing back frantically. Diego and Five pulled him up and out of the room before the others could burst in.  
  
They pulled him away into the hallway he screamed and writhed and covered his ears and Digeo could just about make out a name amongst the wordless screaming. "Klaus, stop!" He shouted, grabbing at his brother's hands once he began to see his nails drawing blood. "You're hurting yourself."  
  
Klaus kicked and screamed and tears ran down his face, leaving dirty track marks in their wake and it was all Diego could do to hold him down. His eyes were glazed and unseeing yet he glanced around at things that weren't really there. Diego went to wrap his arms around him to keep him still but Klaus stood up, nearly head butting Diego in the process, and sprinted away towards his bedroom where he locked the door and slid his back down the wood and onto the floor.   
  
When the others burst through the door behind them, Diego turned to Five who was starting guiltily at the floor. "We need to talk."

* * *

 Five paced around the floor of the library with his hands behind his back and his head down. The others were watching him and Diego like wild dogs watching pray. Finally, Luther broke the silence. "Will one of you please tell us what the hell is going on here?"  
  
"I may have... miscalculated." Five said. There was a faint air of guilt that surrounded him and he refused to make eye contact with the rest of his siblings.

Allison frowned at him, hands on her hips, foot tapping impatiently on the floor. “Miscalculated? You never miscalculate anything- you’re Five, the super smart one who spent years in an apocalypse working as an assassin.”

“And you don’t think that in itself was a miscalculation on my part?” Five retorted and Allison fell silent. Five took a deep breath and held his chin up high but it seemed like the words were a struggle to speak. “No, I believe the mistake I made recently is much more drastic than any I have made before.”

“And it has something to do with Klaus?” Vanya asked quietly, wrapped up in winter gear and curled up on the couch. “Is that why he’s been acting so… strange, lately?”

Luther ran an exhausted hand down his face. “How the hell can you tell if he’s acting any different? He’s always been strange.” Diego elbowed him in the ribs and though it didn’t hurt, Luther glared down at him. “What? Don’t give me that, when he was little he used to set fire to things just to see how long it would take for them to burn. If that’s not strange then I don’t know what is, and he’s only gotten worse.”

“I’m afraid we have much bigger things to consider than his child-like activities and previous drug habits.” Five lowered himself into the chair opposite Vanya and held his head in his hands. “Something much more drastic and possibly irreversible.”

A thought crept it’s way into the back of Diego’s mind that he just couldn’t shake. “Please tell me it has nothing to do with the briefcase?”

“It has everything to do with the briefcase.” Five sighed. He glanced around the room. “You all know by now what happened, right?” The other siblings exchanged glances and shook their heads in confusion.  Slowly, Five detached himself from his hands and sat up straight, bringing his arms down to clench hard on the armrests, and looked at each of his siblings in turn, disbelieving. “You mean to tell me this whole time Klaus has been struggling and not a single one of you knew it?”

Diego scoffed. “I noticed it when he drank a whole bottle of vodka and got a fight in a veteran’s bar. It was bad enough that he was pretending to be one of them but then I had to get him away from a bar fight and he demanded I tied him to a chair.”

“You fool,” Five hissed and the others were taken aback. It was odd that Five cared so much. “He wasn’t pretending to be one of them, he _is_ one of them! If you knew about the briefcase, why was it such a stretch to assume it took him to war?”

“Hold up,” Luther raised his hands in an effort to stop the approaching argument. “You’re telling me that he time-travelled and went to war and then he came back and nobody noticed anything?”

Five glared at Luther. “I don’t know how you couldn’t. I noticed it as soon as he returned.”

“Oh, right,” Allison rolled her eyes. “Tell us Five, how could you have possibly noticed?”

“Well, considering I am the only time traveller here, I am fully capable of recognizing the signs,” Five snapped. “But that was after I saw the blood in the bathtub, the trail of it leading towards his room, his ruined knuckles, the dog tags around his neck, the new army tattoo and the obvious signs of PTSD.”

The room fell silent as the siblings struggled to take in the information. Vanya was holding a hand over her mouth. “When did this happen?” She whispered. “And not a single one of you knew?”

Nobody argued with her because she was absolutely right, but Five pressed a hand to his forehead and leaned back against the chair. “I’m assuming that it was while he was being tortured by Cha-Cha and Hazel for information about my whereabouts, or somewhere within that timeframe. Probably when you lost your precious Patch,” he waved a hand absently in Diego’s direction and Diego held back his anger, if only for a moment. “He must have escaped, found the briefcase, opened it and it sent him to whatever war he was deposited in.”

“Wait a minute,” Luther said, voice much less volatile and much softer now that the information was sinking in and stacking up. “When the fuck was he tortured by Cha-Cha and Hazel?”

“Probably when they stormed the house in search of me,” Five said dismissively. “They must have taken him in my place and tortured him for information. It’s their usual tack, an obvious one really.”

“How come none of us knew he was missing?” Allison sat heavily down onto the nearest surface and brought a shaking hand up to her hair. “He’s our brother and he went through that without saying a single word to any of us? What kind of siblings are we that we didn’t even know he had been _tortured_?”

Everyone was silent for a moment as the scale of the situation sat heavily on them like a load of bricks, crushing their hearts into tiny, fractured pieces. It was Diego who broke the silence in a voice nothing more than a whisper. “He told me he had lost someone. When I followed him into the veteran’s bar, he was crying over a photo on the wall. He was holding something in his hand but we were fighting before I could ask him what it was. When it got in the car he told me… that he lost someone.” He glanced to Five who was staring at him with knowing eyes. “Do you think the person he lost was Dave when they went to war together?”

“Absolutely,” Five nodded and Vanya tried to muffle her sobs with her hand.

“Does anyone even know how long he was gone for?” Luther asked, holding onto the wall behind him for balance so tightly that he felt the plaster give way under his fingers.

Five shrugged. “For us, it was a couple of days at most. For him, he told me he was there for most of a year. 10 months if I remember correctly.”

For the first time for a very, very long time, Luther felt his body shake and his words didn’t come out particularly strong either. “Then we have to go and talk to him. We weren’t there for him before but if we let him know that we’re here for him now then maybe he will open up to us and talk about what happened.”

Sighing, Five shook his head. “He won’t listen to you. Sure, your intentions are in the right place, but never have you been on his side of anything. He won’t trust that you have his best interests at heart. No, it should be someone who knows about the situation and is willing to work with him towards a common goal.”

“Then it shouldn’t be you either, Five.” Allison pointed out. “You knew about it as soon as it happened and instead of telling us or comforting him you kept it to yourself and didn’t do anything to help him.”

“Then tell me sister, who do you think is most fit to go?”

There was a silent standoff for a few moments as the siblings tried to decide who would go and talk to their brother up surprisingly it was Vanya who broke the tension. “I think Diego should go,” She said softly and all eyes turned to her. “I mean, he was the one who was there for Klaus at the bar. You tied him up when he asked you to and you tried to help him through his loss even though you didn’t have to. I think it should be you.”

Heaving a large breath, Diego sighed out through his nose. “Right. Ok. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

“You better tell us what he says,” Luther warned, pushing away from the wall. It was an immediate mistake as his legs turned to jelly without the wall holding him up. “If you keep this from us, Diego, I swear to god…”

“Cool your jets, King Kong,” Diego scoffed before pulling out his phone and directing Luther to do the same. “I’m going to call you,” he explained. “And you’ll put your end of the call on mute. When I go talk to him, I’ll have my phone on me and you can hear what we’re talking about without him catching on that you’re listening. Understood?”

Luther nodded and made sure his phone was securely clutched in his hand when Diego turned and they all watched his retreating form as he left the room in search of their hurting brother.

* * *

  Diego found Klaus relaxing in the bath, water up to his chin and his eyes closed as he listened to the music that was so loud it could be heard through his headphones. Diego checked his phone again and made sure it was calling Luther before he crouched down on the ground beside the tub. Klaus hadn’t noticed him yet so Diego reached a hand out and placed it on his brother's wet shoulder. Klaus cracked one eye opened and glared at Diego. “Do you mind? I’m kind of busy.”

“Oh good, you’re awake. I was a little worried that you’d just died and we were going to have to make you a statue like Ben’s,” Diego joked as he set his phone on the ground beside him and got comfortable. “I guess I just wanted to talk to you.”

“For one, Ben says he resents that statement,” Klaus said and Diego resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “And two, I’m in a bath right now.” The second was delivered like it was blindingly obvious and that Diego was a fool for even considering anything different. “Is this really the time and place when you want to have a heart to heart?”

Clearing his throat, Diego ran a hand through his hair. “I uh, I thought we could talk a bit about D-Dave and what happened in Vietnam back in 1968.”

Klaus seemed to jumpstart, slipping in the tub an accidentally sinking his head under the soapy water before popping back up and spitting the water out of his mouth. He scrubbed the water from his face. “What?”

“I want to know more about the man you fought with back in the Ah Shau valley in 1968,” Diego said calmly, meeting Klaus’s gaze despite his brother's disbelieving stare. “And I want to know what happened when you were with Cha-Cha and Hazel.”

The suspicious look Klaus gave him almost broke Diego’s heart into a million tiny little pieces. “Why do you suddenly care? All that happened ages ago and I’ve been back from 1968 for a really long time.”

“Is it so hard to believe that maybe I just want to have a conversation with my brother?” Diego sighed. “Check up on him? Make sure he’s alright after going through consecutive traumas?” He shook his head and made to stand up. “I can leave if that’s really something you don’t want to talk about…”

“No,” Klaus said abruptly and Diego paused. “Stay.” So after an awkward moment of silence and considering that his brother may have actually been opening up, Diego settled back on the ground and placed his hands in his lap. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Well,” Diego said slowly, wondering why his family sent him in instead of Allison or Vanya, both of which had more experience and ability to deal with the emotional trauma that Klaus was obviously going through, he floundered for the right words to say. “Why don’t we start at the beginning?”

With a sigh, Klaus relaxed back against the edge of the tub, the sound of wet skin sliding on the enamel grated on Diego’s ears. He reached over and gently plucked the headphones off of Klaus’s ears before he could dunk them in the water and noticed that his legs stuck out from the edges of the tub. Klaus had always been the tallest and lankiest and later in life he got sickly thin too but Diego had never really seen just how thin he was until this moment. “When a mummy and a daddy love each other very much…”

“You know what I mean Klaus,”

Klaus closed his eyes. “I didn’t even know Cha-Cha and Hazel had attacked the building until they took me and tied me up in the boot of their car.” Diego spluttered and glanced up at his brother but Klaus was being entirely serious. “They tied me to a chair and they tortured me for information about Five for 10 hours. I told them they kidnapped the wrong person though and I was right. You never tell me anything so I really didn’t know where he was even if I wanted to tell them and that I was the only person who you guys wouldn’t even notice was missing. Which was true as well, now that I think about it.”

Not for the first time, Diego felt such a great tug of guilt in his chest for not knowing any of this and he wondered if his siblings on the other end of the muted phone call felt any of the same. Klaus said such heart aching things as if he were describing the weather and it pained Diego to realize that he had come to terms with it already. “Uh, what happened next?” He said. There was so much that they needed to unpack that Diego wasn’t sure they would get through it all in a single conversation. One step at a time. Maybe he’ll send in Vanya for the next heart-to-heart.

“Well, they tortured me for a couple of hours,” Klaus waved his hand about and the sound of it leaving the water was the only thing Diego could hear over the pounding of his heart in his ears. “Strangulation, burning me, cutting me up, waterboarding me- you know, the usual torturing shtick. I wasn’t too worried though. I knew that either I would die or they would get bored of me and I’d figure out how to escape.” He laughed though and tilted his head against the lip of the tub. “I was not at all expecting your lady Patch to barge in and save the day. I nearly broke my nose trying to get her to hear me though so I don’t know what I excepted.”

Diego swallowed down the burn of pain that rose from Patch’s name. “You weren’t expecting us to find you?”

“Nah,” Klaus said calmly. “As I said, brother dear, I know you guys didn’t even notice I was gone in the first place. Easy mistake to make.”

If he was being honest with himself, Diego knew that Klaus was right and that they never should have let that happen. They were more concerned with Luther’s apelike condition than making sure their other brother wasn’t taken, but he couldn’t find it anywhere within himself to say anything about it now. He hoped the others were having a discussion about it for him. “While you were there, what happened?”

“Well first I got sober,” Klaus sounded curious, as though he were relisting things that had happened on a night out that he hadn’t expected. “I talked to quite a few ghosts, all of them killed by Cha-Cha and Hazel. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. I know you don’t believe me ever but just bear with me for a moment if you could.  I scared the shit out of them though. The ghosts were angry and once I told them the names of all the people they’d killed, you better believe I had them on edge.” A soft smile graced his lips and Diego wondered how long it had been since he’d seen his brother smile like that. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ben so proud of me in all my life.”

Diego couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, they’re always a silver lining for you isn’t there?”

“Oh yeah,” Klaus breathed. “But then they got sick of me so they put tape on my mouth and turned my chair towards the door and waited. They were so sure that one of you guys were going to come for me even though I told them you wouldn’t. So when Patch came in, she untied me and I crawled away through a vent beside the bed.” He paused and gripped the side of the tub with white-knuckled fingers. When he spoke, his voice was shaky. “And that’s when I found the briefcase.”

It was almost like all the air was knocked out of Diego’s lungs. The world began to spin and he leaned forward to hold onto the bathtub as he spoke. “Oh yeah?” He could see Klaus’s face from this angle and the wet hair that was covering his blank, unseeing eyes.

“I brought it onto the bus with me, as soon as I’d escaped.” Klaus’s voice was devoid of all emotion as if he were intentionally trying to distance himself from thinking too hard about what happened. “I opened it because I thought it might have the money or something I could pawn, but it just lit up blue like Five does when he blinks and when I opened my eyes I was on the floor of the barracks and there were gunshots and helicopters flying over my head. They shoved a gun in my hand, gave me a helmet and suddenly I was fighting in the Vietnam war in 1968.”

No matter how much Diego tried to speak, no words left his throat so he just watched Klaus as he stared blindly at the blank white wall. Eventually, when it was obvious that Klaus wasn’t going to continue without prompting, Diego took a deep breath and pushed through the pain. “D-Dave?”

“Yeah, I met Dave alright.” Klaus’s laugh was bitter-sweet. “The only person I’ve ever met who actually have a shit about me and meant every word of what he said. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone more than I loved him. And then he died, and I couldn’t save him.” Diego wasn’t sure if the wetness on his brother’s face was tears or the bath water and he wasn’t going to get closer to double check. “I only came back because he died. If he hadn’t, and we were able to leave the war and live out the rest of our lives in 1968, I absolutely would have.”

“How long were you there for?” Diego whispered, despite already knowing the answer from Five.

Klaus didn’t even think of his answer. “I was there for 10 months, but I doubt it was more than a couple of days for you guys. I could have left at any time though- I could have left the moment I arrived. But I stayed for him because I didn’t think I would ever find a love like that again.” He sank deeper into the tub. “I would have been content with dying there as long as Dave was by my side.”

“You really loved him,” Diego said gently, fiddling with the edges of the bathmat just to give himself something to do. “You loved him enough to stay in a warzone with him. That could have really fucked you up man.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, it absolutely did,” Klaus said dismissively as he sank deeper into the tub. Diego started in surprise. “I can still sometimes hear the helicopters flying over my head, or the gunshots that are so loud that I just have to cover my ears and hope to god they aren’t real, even though they sometimes are. Sometimes I forget how to breathe because Dave is beside me, bleeding out in my arms and nobody is around to help. Yeah,” he sighed. “I see Dave’s dead body a lot.”

“Fuck,” Diego hissed and wanted desperately to curl up in himself and forget his conversation ever happened. “That’s tough man. Why didn’t you ever tell us any of this?”

As Klaus spoke, he pulled his arm out of the water and inspected his nails. “It’s not like any of you fuckers would have believed me or cared, so I just thought it was easier to keep it to myself.”

“Do you get to speak to him?” Diego asked, averting his gaze from Klaus completely. “Dave, I mean.”

There was something undoubtedly sad in the soft sigh Klaus let out and the unfathomable pain that Diego could feel radiating off of him in waves. “Nah, not yet. It’s not like with Ben; I can’t see him whenever I want. I am trying, though. I see more ghosts when I’m clean and sober so I’m trying to stay that way so maybe one day I’ll actually be able to tell him I love him again.”

Diego didn’t even know what to say but thankfully, Klaus spared him from having to by clearing the tears that had blocked his throat. “But you know, doesn’t really matter. I’m dealing with it so you shouldn’t worry. I don’t want this to change anything now that you know.”

“Klaus,” Diego breathed. “Why didn’t you tell us? You know that you could have some really fucked up things going on in that messed up brain of yours. PTSD? Anxiety? Depression? You really should have said something earlier man.”

Klaus sent him a lop-sided grin. “Would you have believed me? Besides, there’s nothing you could have done anyway. I’m not taking any pills like Vanya had to despite how desperately I feel like I need them sometimes so there’s nothing to prescribe me. And yeah, sometimes I feel like I’m back there in the trenches and I can hear the gunshots in my ears and the blood on my hands but you know, I’m alright.”

“Are you…” Diego began. He waved his hand around as he tried to find the words to pluck out of thin air. Klaus waited patiently for him to find them. “Are you talking to Ben about it? Is he helping you through it?”

“Oh yeah, I can’t seem to get rid of him. We’re basically attached by the hip at this point,” Klaus joked. “But yeah, I’m having regular chats with my ghostly therapist. Ben says hi, by the way. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Diego nodded and ran a wearily hand down his face.  “Hi Ben,” he sighed. He reached up and patted Klaus on the shoulder. “Well, I suppose I’ll leave you to your bathing. Don’t forget to wash under the folds and stuff,” he stood, making sure he grabbed his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. “You know you can always come talk to us though Klaus, yeah?”

Klaus looked him up and down before answering, a slight suspicion on his face. “Yeah Diego. I know.”

Sending a thin-lipped smile over his shoulder, Diego left the room and leaned against the closed door for a moment, eyes shut and hands shaking before he made his way back to the room where his other siblings were gathered.

When he entered the library, he wasn’t entirely surprised to see what awaited him.

Vanya was sobbing into her scarf, holding a pillow to her chest and squeezing it like a lifeline. Allison had a hand on her forehead, staring up at the ceiling. There were holes in the walls from where Luther had shoved his fist through the ply wall and wood in anger and now he sat dejected on the ground his head in his hands. Even Five, which took a lot to faze him, had worry and pain in his eyes from where he was pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. When Diego walked in, all eyes turned to him. “Well, I guess we’ve got the information we needed now.”

“Why have we let this happen?” Vanya wailed into her scarf. “We should have been there, we all should have asked him if he was alright and made sure he was happy every now and again instead of letting him just self-medicate like he was.”

“How were we supposed to know?” Luther’s voice was devoid of all emotion. “We didn’t even know he was there. It’s exactly like he said- none of us even knew he was gone until it was too late. If we were there quickly, we would have found him before he was tortured by Cha-Cha and Hazel. He was there for days and we didn’t even _know_.”

“I wonder what they did to him,” Allison sunk into a chair. “How much pain they put him through. How lost he must have felt when he realized that nobody was coming for him.”

Five stopped his pacing and bit his bottom lip hard enough to taste the iron sting of blood. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. What’s done is done and all we can hope to do now is help him through whatever trauma that he’s obviously going through. That's’ all we can do now because no matter how much we try to deny it, we are still a family. A family of emotionally stunted assholes but still a family all the same. I think we can handle that much commitment.”

“We have to,” Vanya sobbed. “We can’t let this keep happening. Even with Ben by his side, we can’t let him hurt like this alone.”

Luther turned to Allison. “Do you think you could take away the trauma? Make him forget?”

“No,” Diego said sharply before Allison could reply as he collected his coat from the back of a chair. “Absolutely not. I don’t care what he’s been through and how much he’s hurting; I am not letting him forget the time he spent with D-Dave. No matter what.”

“I understand where you’re coming from Diego but maybe it’s best to just… where are you going?” Luther asked, confused as he watched Diego slip into his jacket and make his way towards the door.

“I’m going to run an errand,” Diego replied and the door slammed shut behind him, sending the room in silence except for Five’s tapping foot and Vanya’s quiet sobs.

When Klaus woke up the next morning, refreshed and energised and ready to take on a new day and face whatever was thrown at him with Ben by his side as he always was, he saw the carefully wrapped gift in on his side-table. The paper was brown and coated in bloodied fingerprints. Klaus held it gingerly in his hands. Ben leant over his shoulder and glanced down at the package. “Open it,” he urged. “Gifts can only lead to good things.”

Slowly, Klaus peeled away the wrapping to reveal a familiar black and white photo of a squadron of men in military uniforms posing together, guns over their shoulders, helmets on their heads and smiles on their faces. Slowly, Klaus involuntarily sunk to the ground as he ran his fingers over Dave’s face, one that had been burned into his memory for the rest of time.

As Klaus held the photograph to his chest, the one he had gone to the veteran’s bar to fight over, and wept as his heart shattered all over again, Ben slid down beside him and placed his arms over Klaus’s shaking shoulders. “See?” he asked, a laugh in his voice as he hold his sobbing sibling to his side. “Like I said, gifts like that can only lead to good things.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally going to have Diego call Luther "Curious Geroge" instead of "King Kong" but I wasn't sure if anyone outside of Australia knew who he was.


End file.
